Economics, advanced manufacturing techniques and space settlements

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Ian Woollard wrote:
> Ed Minchau wrote:
>
> > Well, it depends on the scale you are talking about. If your 3d
> > printer works at the nanoscale, then what you have is a
> > nanoassembler; capable of building ANYTHING atom by atom given
the
> > raw material (ie dirt) and sufficient energy. Something like
that
> > would also be able to build other nanoassemblers.
>
> I don't buy this. Basically programming the nanoassembler is
> non trivial- it's a software problem. I do software for a living-
> it aint easy.
>